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We’re back in 2019 with a catch up on flexibility in our lives, our community and the general consensus across Australia on a whole range of issues to do with flexibility – family, lifestyle, wage disparity, women in politics and our politics/leaders generally.

Apologies for the audio quality from Helen’s end – persist because we have some great discussions around flexibility and what it looks like into this year!

Helen had the pleasure of catching up with an old HR Pal, Vanessa Rawson. Vanessa’s journey is wonderful, courageous, adventurous and altogether designed to give other people courage to follow their dreams.

Helen & Vanessa’s paths originally crossed some 10 years ago in the world of HR and since then, have both embarked on a journey to find their right “spot” in the world. A journey that has taken some years and still continues, Vanessa provides us with the story to date on her journey from HR as a profession, from City Chic to breaking into the regional living and diversifying your professional skill-set, with a lovely bloke Trev and the gorgeous Maggie, their beloved dog in tow.

Vanessa’s journey is inspiring, thoughtful, and should give us all courage that we can follow our dreams, slowly and surely chip away at creating a life that we can thoroughly enjoy and break any pre-concieved ideas of life and the rat race we might have held onto. Forget the status quo – go and pursue your dreams and you can do it, one day at a time. There’s no right journey or path for anyone, it does take work, dedication, getting outside your comfort zone and nothing is perfect, but one step at a time, one day at a time, you can pursue a life, a career, a tree change and make your dreams come true.

Honest to goodness, this interview had me go out for a run (okay, well a fast walk) that afternoon! Tim is a full time HR Business Partner with Mercer and is also an AFL boundary umpire. Flexibility and fitness make it possible for Tim to manage this work-life integration – it also requires adaptability on a weekly basis, time management to the max, and lots of scalable trial and error along the way in the quest for win-win flexibility. I thoroughly enjoyed chewing the fat on flexibility with Tim and loved the insights and considerations on flexibility from both an employee and employer perspective. I also loved the reminders about how we look after our wellbeing – including the importance of rest and regular exercise! Join us for a conversation on the flexibility and fitness required to manage these sometimes-competing commitments and more importantly enjoy them!

The fabulous Jacqui Davis joins us over a Friday coffee and vegemite toast from our beloved local café (@themabel) to talk all things flexibility – and in particular what it takes to leap off the corporate ladder into the unknown of a much needed career break and life-adjustment, and then the leap back into the world of paid employment in a dream role that meets her current needs from a work-and-life-juggle perspective. Jacqui reflects on her journey and inspires us to think about our how we too can adjust along the way to better meet our needs – life is a journey after all, not a destination. And good coffee always makes the journey more enjoyable 😉

We welcome back Kim Grady to our PodCast as she updates us on all things Gourmet Roaming, and what has bought her back home, the dangers of hiking, and falling, and seriously hurting yourself, and being carried down a Mountain by some amazing strangers, meeting McDreamy and his gorgeous girlfriend, the kindness of strangers and the path of what’s next ….. it was and is, always a pleasure to Chew the Fat with the effervescently positive Kim Grady. Follow her adventures @GourmetRoaming and we hope you enjoy this chat.

Leonie has enjoyed a year of new business and work opportunities and the varying degrees of flexibility with running your own business with staff. Helen returns from 14 months travelling Australia with her family, has pulled up stumps on 27 acres at the Sunshine Coast and about to re-engage in the working world.

Kim has made the incredible decision to leap into the not yet chartered territory of being her own getaway reporter… well sort of… she gets to choose the destination, the script, and the menu! Having worked her way up the career ladder at an awesome speed, she got to the top, looked around and felt the need to feed a different passion. This chat covers how this farmer’s daughter (then a ski instructor, lawyer, tour guide, general manager and the rest) came to the decision to test out the new world of work… what else is out there that might feed (literally and figuratively) her passion for food, wine, and travel…

There is so very much to love about her story, so much to be inspired by, and so much fun to follow. Enjoy the chat, and find out more at:

We had the pleasure of interviewing an amazing General Manager who has implemented flexible working practices with her whole team. Yep, she’s adopted a one in all in approach and best of all, she agreed to come on our PodCast.

Now Skye Hart is not her real name, but to protect confidentiality and commercial sensitivities we had to use an alias, and Skye Hart is what we came up with – who said being creative wasn’t one of our strong suits???

Skye Hart is married with 3 children, GM in a major global organisation and she agreed to talk with us about how her and husband manage their parenting, career and personal pursuits and it was great to hear.

Skye has a beautiful nature, has some great insights and very considered way in which she works. We were thoroughly blessed to have so much insight, information and tips on how to make flexibility work in the workplace.

We hope you enjoy our chat with Skye as much as we enjoyed having her on!

This is a very interesting read.One of my constant findings as we delve into the world of finding the balance between our professional and personal lives, is employers distrust their employees.This article highlights some really interesting points about how business needs to adopt the way different people work.

It’s not about presenteeism, it’s about results, output and delivery of business requirements.Employees who are known to business seem to have better results in obtaining flexible working arrangements.But if you’re re-engaging in the workplace, how do you manage your flexible working arrangements as a negotiation tool?

How is your business managing this?Are your Managers’ equipped to manage staff remotely, flexibly, or in fact, at all?

FlexConnect engages, equips, empowers people and organisations to work flexibly.Don’t miss this wave of engaging and empowering your people.FlexConnect – TODAY.

Allison is inspirational. In the short time I’ve known her, she returned home to Australia in tow with her lovely partner, Rob. She’d completed her gig at Burberry, moved to regional Victoria and took on a major role with a retail chain. She subsequently was made redundant whilst she was on maternity leave with Scarlett.

Allison flitted between the UK and Australia, finally settling into some pretty senior contract roles with PwC, purchasing a Chalet in France, getting married Great Gatsby style and then negotiating an amazing arrangement of flexibility that allows her the best balance she can find whilst pursuing her career, renovating her chalet and enjoying her life in Europe as she flits between London & France.

Allison is truly spell binding, her approach to life is like a cold glass of lemonade on a hot day – refreshing, sparkly and effervescent. Luckily for us she also adds some vodka and lime along the way during our chat to truly inspire us in how to live our lives better.

We are truly blessed to have Allison join us to chat about her life and thank you from the bottom of our hearts as she caught up with us from her French Chalet! We hope you enjoy this chat as much as we enjoyed having it!